Maybe you haven't heard of the Prosecco route, or in Italian: Strada del Prosecco, which adds a lot of Italian coolness to the road. The route stretches between the two towns of Valdobbiadene and Conegliano - that is, it is not a route at all, as we thought, but a jumble of roads that you can drive completely as you like - and apparently it suited us just fine to take wrong turns time and time again.
In the summer of 2024, we are on a long stay in our small apartment in Ospedaletti, on the Italian north coast. We reside on the last few hundred meters of the Alps and have five minutes to the Mediterranean - and since our daughter would like to borrow the apartment, it is a welcome excuse to go on an adventure in Italy.
Our first thought was to go on a road trip on the winding coastal roads, all the way to Amalfi, and back home. But as the temperature in southern Italy reached 40 degrees, we thought we would stay in the slightly cooler northern Italy, where the night temperature did not reach much more than 23 degrees.
We actually didn't know the phenomenon of the Prosecco route until we started looking around for places to visit. But we like prosecco, and we like Italy, and we love driving our electric car - a Polestar. All in all, a good mix for a trip out into the blue.
We had a talk with our holiday neighbor Lorenzo, who lives permanently in Treviso, who said it was the most beautiful trip ever and a lovely area to visit. And thus it was a plan.
As it is now with electric cars, it was just a matter of checking the charging options and the best route, so that everything fit with our Tesla subscription, but honestly there are virtually no challenges in driving around in an electric car these days - not even in Italy, although many Italians still think that electric cars are something strange.
We had about 470 km to go for the first night in Vicenza, which means two charging stops for our Polestar, and that means two wonderful breaks with nice Italian coffee and maybe a small dolce. We reached our hotel early in the evening and luckily there was air conditioning. We turned it all the way down to cool and enjoyed the freezing, for the first time in a very long time.
Where did the route go?
The next day we were up early, and then just set off towards Valdobbiadene, which marks the start of the Prosecco route - or the end, if you like. The options for charging the car were checked and in place, so it was just about enjoying the trip.
Once we arrived in Valdobbiadene, we thought there would be a huge sign saying Strada del Prosecco. But no. Not really anything that in any way indicated in which direction we should drive. But then there is the internet, where we found a pdf thing with an overview of something that could resemble a route - or many routes, because as I wrote in the introduction, the Prosecco route is not really a specific route, but more of an area.
It is all about DOC
There are only two places in Italy, where prosecco can get the state-controlled quality mark DOC and one of the places is for vineyards to be located between Valdobbiadene and Conegliano. The Prosecco route therefore covers more of an area than it is an actual road. It is, on the other hand, an insanely beautiful area with the most beautiful soft hilly landscape, completely overgrown with vines. In fact, there is not a spot, whether it is a small backyard, where a grapevine has not been planted. Every square meter goes into the cultivation of grapes for the most delicious DOC prosecco.
(Non)signage in the best Italian style
Well, we checked the pdf map we had downloaded and found a sign for the next town on the road, and set off well. And in addition there was a small brown sign with "Strada del Prosecco". "This is going to be easy," we thought, but in the best Italian style, the brown direction signs were not really followed up on, and the pdf map and the GPS map in the car didn't quite match in appearance, so we probably reached approx. 500 meters before we took the first wrong turn, and so we had to try various small roads before we were back on track.
Since we didn't really know what to expect from the experience, we had an idea that we should follow the route from the pdf map. Maybe we had thought of it as a kind of amusement, where you drive around in a cortege - like in the tiger cage in a zoo - I don't know. But it hit us relatively fast that this is not a tourist magnet and is basically just an area of wineries that you can experience at your own pace.
Not a drop of prosecco here!
En route, you can visit the wineries' dispensing and sales points, or you can taste and buy in some of the shops that sell the wine from many different farms. Or you can, as we mostly did, park the car and go out into the countryside and just enjoy the beautiful hills with the huge number of vines.
By various detours we reached Conegliano, which is the most eastern town in the DOC area. It is a fairly large and fairly doll city, apart from the fact that you can charge your car here. So we did that, and then we hurried back west again towards Valdobbiadene, which is a really nice town with a large town square and quiet streets.
Back in Valdobbiadene, it was getting late in the afternoon, and we agreed that we hadn't really seen it all and hadn't really taken THE picture, so we would find a place to sleep and then continue the next day. We hadn't had any Prosecco during the day, because there's something sad about the fact that one of us sits in the car plastered, while the driver is - well, just a real driver, and since we couldn't find a place to sleep in the city, why we had one more drive to do, it didn't make sense to go to a bar now either.
Have you tried Birramisu?
We found a pretty cool place approx. 20 km from the town, which is called Norah's Hill, and which is a fantastic little oasis, where many locals come to eat on Friday and Saturday evenings, and if you have had a little too much alcohol, you can rent a room. So now was the chance to have a little drink - but! Norah's Hill is part of a brewery, so the drink card was naturally full of beer.
Now we are very fond of beer, so it was fine and exciting enough, but eventually we could see where it was going. A Prosecco tour without a drop of prosecco. In return, a very exciting drinks and menu card with, among other things, "Birramisu".
We ended up with a couple of house burgers and tested various beer drinks, and it was wonderful just to have to go up to the first floor to sleep.
After an unbelievably overwhelmingly delicious breakfast with all the barista-brewed coffees we wanted and fresh-squeezed juices in raw quantities to wash down the home-baked bread with the region's best cheese, we headed back to the soft green hills to get a few more shots home.
Il grande Finale
It was half a day more in the hills, still without prosecco, but with a miserable sandwich, while we, once again, charged the Polestar in Conegliano, and then we turned the car towards Bergamo, where we were to visit our Italian acquaintance Matteo, who runs the Grems Bike Hostel in Parre.
It was a wonderful trip in one of the most beautiful landscapes, in one of the coolest cars we've had - electric cars really come into their own in mountain landscapes on small roads - but without a single drop of prosecco along the way.
On the other hand, we now know a lot about prosecco and the vineyards, and that has made it a little more fun when we now buy prosecco in supermarkets and other places. So we have had so much afterwards.
Definitely a trip worth recommending, but it is probably difficult to spend much more than two days in the area. Unless you are staying in, for instance Valdobbiadene, and thus have the time and opportunity to taste the drops in the authentic environment.
